Episode 348: Robot GMs, Bartolo at Bat, and Other Listener Emails
Date December 13, 2013 Summary Ben and Sam answer listener emails about trading within the division, stats on baseball broadcasts, Mike Trout, and more. Topics * Bartolo Colon and bad hitting pitchers * Trading within the division * New trackable stats * Stats on baseball broadcasts * Blue Jays and knuckleballers * Changing Hall of Fame rules for Mike Trout * Robot GMs Intro Guided by Voices, "Gold Star for Robot Boy" Banter Fat player pictures - Robinson Cano Email Questions * Dan: "After you guys discussed Bartolo Colon and his contract it got me thinking on a general level about how Colon's value may be different in the AL versus the NL. Then I thought about the biggest difference between the two leagues, that now, as a Met, Colon will have to bat 2-3 times per game. One would figure that as his size, age, and general distaste for looking interested Colon is a prime candidate for a .000 batting average season. Obviously the Mets wouldn't care about that but are there any examples where it might make sense for a team to value a pitcher differently because of the potential for offensive contribution? I think this might come into play in the NL where relative to the league and excellent hitter could be standard deviations above the mean." * Nicholas: "I don't understand the concept that the Rays will not consider trading David Price within the division. Obviously it's not ideal to have him face his old team 3-4 times per year but there must be a point where an offer is too good to pass up. To me, if I were to receive an offer that provided say, 120% of the value from a divisional opponent, then the added value would seem to considerably outweigh facing him 3-4 times per year. What do you guys think, is there a point where the value is too much to pass up? If so, how much more?" * Rick (Seattle, WA): "What is one piece of data outside of the standard FIELDf/x or something similar that isn't currently being tracked that you'd like to see tracked? For instance, Jon Miller keeps track of every broken bat on his scorecard which would be great data to have league-wide." * Rick (Seattle, WA): "What is your favorite baseball video game?" * Ian: "When watching my local baseball broadcast they show 11 stats (starts, record, ERA, IP, H, BB, Ks, left handed BA, right handed BA, HRs allowed) when introducing a pitcher. If you were the person on the production team who chose those 11 stats which stats would you choose for an audience of BP subscribers? Hitters are introduced with five stats, which stats would you choose?" * Eric: "Is the next great inefficiency the Blue Jays knowing how to help pitchers with the knuckleball?" * Brady: "When I am lying in bed getting ready to go to sleep occasionally an email idea pops into my head. The other night I was wondering how many years would Mike Trout have to play before you would consider him worthy of the Hall of Fame? Assume that Trout doesn't suffer any life changing Tony Conigliaro type of injury." * Vinit (Milwaukee, WI): "paraphrases beginning...Baseball Prospectus recently ran a guest piece about team core wins by Jonathan Judge. I wonder if you could use that, along with expected payroll and expected team wins, etc. to come up with a metric to grade each trade that a team makes. If you could grade each trade, free agent signing, contract extension, etc. the owner would have to input variables such as win now or win in 2015-16 and payroll. The computer would go through each possible move, grade it, and make the best ones. Do you think human GMs would be more or less likely to trade with robot GMs? On the one hand there would be no warm human interaction. On the other hand a robot would not be offended by ridiculous trade offers. Human GMs would offer all kinds of trades to see if they could somehow game the system, no?" Notes * Bartolo Colon is a career .104/.112/.104 hitter in 104 plate appearances. His new contract was discussed in Episode 347. * Ben wants to get trackable data on relievers warming up. * The only baseball video game Sam ever played was Bases Loaded 2. Despite growing up as an avid gamer, Ben was more into hockey and soccer as far as sports games. * Sam would want IP, K, BB, HR, and ERA for both the season and last month. For relievers he also wants leverage index. Ben wants strikeout percentage, walk percentage, ground ball percentage, and pitcher repertoire information. . * Ben predicts Mike Trout will have 78 WAR by the end of his 10th season. * Sam says that Vinit's question is a trap and he is really Murray Chass writing in to get them to incriminate themselves. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 348: Robot GMs, Bartolo at Bat, and Other Listener Emails Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes